Inside Sam Allardyce's first Leeds United week, coaching roles and new arrival priority is revealed - YEP 10/5/23

Sam Allardyce's first week at Leeds United has been an exercise in lifting the mood and attempting to alleviate stress in order to heave them up above the Premier League drop zone.

By Graham Smyth

Appointed last Wednesday, Allardyce made his presence known at Thorp Arch as soon as he stepped through the door. Marching up to Pascal Struijk he turned the air blue to exclaim what a good looking lad the defender was.

"It's nice to hear people laughing in there again," said CEO Angus Kinnear, who knew Allardyce from their time at West Ham United and put in the call when the club decided they needed to replace Javi Gracia with four games remaining.

Kinnear joked that the first impression Allardyce gave at the training ground was not of a man struggling for self-confidence.

But as much as Big Sam the big character is central to Leeds' last-ditch attempt to revive this season, hitting the players with a charm offensive and a comedy routine was not the new manager's first priority.

The first people he wanted to see upon arrival were Willy Alonso and Jordan Davison. Alonso is the head of the club's analysis department, Davison is the first team performance analyst. Together they could give Allardyce keys to the information he wanted as he sought conclusions as to what had been going wrong and how to fix it all.

Analysis and psychology have long gone hand-in-hand as part of Allardyce's approach to football management. It wouldn't take any amount of time in a room with analysts, however, to deduce that Leeds United, as a team and a club, have been labouring under stress.

The YEP understands that stress had come to noticeably impact Allardyce's predecessor Gracia, who impressed senior players with his coaching sessions but was less effective as a motivator. Everyone could see and hear the stress in Jesse Marsch's latter public appearances before he lost the job.

Allardyce, coming into the situation this late in the day, has not lived the Leeds 2022/23 nightmare and bears no responsibility for it, so it's little surprise that the club's unique brand of stress has not engulfed him.

His role, therefore, has been to do whatever he can to lighten the load with his interactions and the players' schedule. Where Marsch liked everyone to eat together and spend lots of time as a collective, Allardyce keeps a certain distance, operates from his office and stays with his coaching staff. He does, however, take time to be around the players when they're not training to have conversations about topics entirely unrelated to football and relegation. He has been personable, delivering selection decisions - like the dropping of Illan Meslier - in conversation.

Acquainting himself with everyone in the building, including the kitchen staff, Allardyce is trying to foster fun and togetherness for an organisation that has not been having fun.

And having put the nation's media and their headline-writing process on his back last week in his very first press conference, he has continued to try and take the pressure off. The squad have had just one day off since Allardyce arrived, but importance has been placed on time off. When it's time to train players are expected to be fully dialled in but when they're not at Thorp Arch the hope is that they will put themselves in an environment that lets them switch off, so minds and not just bodies are getting rest.

On the training pitches Allardyce has led each session, focusing predominantly on shape and defensive work, while Robbie Keane has taken on responsibility with the attackers and Karl Robinson has had a hand in everything in between. The latter, who comes with a reputation as a larger-than-life character, is also said to have impressed with his coaching ability. Michael Skubala is also firmly in the middle of it, with a slightly greater involvement than he had prior to Allardyce's arrival. A board member for the League Managers Association, Allardyce knew all three men previously.

Together the idea has been to issue clear, concise instructions, delivered directly and as positively as possible. Team meetings are to be short, sharp and effective. Everything is to the point and there's no debate. This is how Allardyce wants to play, these are the dos and the don'ts. Whether it's the authority with which he communicates or the precariousness of the club's position that has sharpened up time-keeping for any who previously struggled with the concept, there has been no lateness. An appetite for crossing him has thus far not made itself known.

And while no one at Leeds is calling the past week an enjoyable one, the feeling is that Allardyce has made it a little more bearable.

Therein lies any crumb of hope for Leeds, who sit second bottom with three games to play and two points away from safety. Making this struggling team into a very good one would be too tall an order and too unreasonable an ask for any manager at this stage of a campaign. It stands to reason, however, that making them feel better about themselves and the jobs they have to go out and do, might make them a team with a better chance of getting a result.

Everything Allardyce said and did in his first week, even if Manchester City and an almost inevitable defeat were first up, was about putting the team in a better position to go out and beat Newcastle United at Elland Road on Saturday. What Leeds United do in his second week has got to raise the serious possibility of survival and prove that Allardyce has not been wasting his time, his effort and his words.